Salvage
by Negrek
Summary: The child lives the lives others have left behind. After all, what do they need with their names, their faces, their pokémon, anymore? The child needs them. It has a mission: find its mother, free its mother, just like it promised before it died. And the first step in accomplishing that goal? Become Pokémon League Champion, of course.
1. Chapter 1

**Rating: **I went back and forth on the rating of this for a while; there's a lot of strong language in later chapters, as a major character is introduced who has a very foul mouth, and that would be the primary factor in rating this story M. However, there are also a couple of scenes of physical and/or psychological torture in later chapters; I don't think they're particularly graphic, but they will be called out specifically in the author's notes when they occur in case you'd prefer to avoid them. Other than that, the material is very T-level, with a fair amount of blood, violence, and death, and the odd sexual reference. Therefore, I decided to leave the 'fic at T overall.

**Author's Notes: **Here we go with another 'fic, then! Just a short little chapter to get things started off. I've been working on this one for a while, and I'm very excited to finally begin posting it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

**Chapter 1**

The child comes home with the chill of the caverns still clinging to it, slush under its fingernails and inner fire stoked against the cold. The inside of the house is cool as well, the windows in the small kitchen showing mostly the underside of palm leaves. It stows the goods in a corner, to be looked over later, but there is one thing that cannot wait.

There's a drawer where it keeps its little collection of souls, and it takes them out now. It sits at the table flipping through the tiny cards, turning each one gently over between its fingers, remembering. There aren't more than half a dozen, but it goes through them again and again, until the ice melts from its hair and the shadows recede from its mind and an appropriate amount of time has passed. Then it brings out the pokédex and pries open the door in its back. The card inside joins the pile, and the new one, rescued from the freezing depths and now warm from the heat of the child's body, is slotted in its place.

Then it's back in with the battery and turn the pokédex over, wait for it to boot up. All alone, hunched over the table in that dark room, the child waits for the flickering screen to tell it who it is.

* * *

You are Nicholas Garret, a trainer. You left Pallet Town on the morning of May third with a charmander. Four years later you own the charizard that evolved from your starter, a primeape, a nidoqueen, and several more of little consequence. You have six badges. You are a slow trainer, then, but a thorough one.

Today you were exploring the Seafoam Islands. Who knew why you'd stopped there? Perhaps you'd been on your way to Cinnabar, ready to chase that seventh badge, and headed over on a whim. Perhaps you were remembering the stories, the ones that said Articuno's icy nest lay somewhere in the bowels of the caves. Probably you hadn't been planning your journey there, or you would have put on some heavier clothing. But ultimately, why you were there, you don't know. All that's sure is what came after.

You were in deep, down where the currents rage and everything is slick and glittering with the constant churning spray. There wasn't much cave left, and maybe you were getting ready to turn back. You turned, anyway, and were starting to climb up, when you slipped.

It was all ice down there, ice and freezing river, and you fell too far, landing hard on the narrow spit of rock sloping down to the water. The arm trapped beneath your body snapped, and you were still sliding, feet already in the water and current starting to tug at your shoes.

You grabbed at the rock with your good arm, tried to scramble with your legs. When you couldn't get a hold and the water was reaching for your waist, you grabbed for your pokéballs, fumbling with cold-numbed fingers, but then they went under and then _you_ went under, and the river pulled you in and down.

With your broken arm and heavy gear, there was no fighting the current. It swept you along its subterranean bed, dumping you over underground waterfalls and knocking you against rocks as it went. It was all over well before the pull gentled and left you floating, dark and lonely, so far below the sea.

You died down there, Nicholas Garret, drowned in the blackest pit of the Seafoam Islands. You were fifteen years old.

What do you do now?


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2  
**

The first thing you do is empty your computer account. There isn't much in your PC, just a few potions and odd trinkets picked up here and there, but you take them all and shove them into your backpack. You have no pokémon in storage, and that is a relief. You still haven't really figured out what to do with former trainers' pokémon; you've tried releasing them, but they often attack you when you try, and Absol considers it unwise. You do try to be careful—release them far from home, all across the globe, and hope no one will listen to some pokémon's wild tale of a creature that wore its trainer's face but was something else entirely. But if someone took an interest, and the proper lines were drawn—dangerous.

There's the same problem with selling them, with the added fact that buyers often ask questions you would rather not answer. So, for now, you mostly leave them in the PC, to eventually be dealt with by the league. You can't help but feel a bit guilty, knowing the long sleep ahead of them, and when they awake, only the news that their trainer is dead and a new life has been selected for them.

Anyway, you have your hands full with your own pokémon as it is.

You hesitate over the matter of money. You don't really need it, no, but you do love to shop. Absol thinks this is a failing of yours, but she is a pokémon, after all. There are some things she doesn't understand. But money has been a problem in the past. Withdraw too much or spend it too fast, and some far-off computer algorithm will flag your account, and you'll be out a perfectly good identity. At least learning that lesson the hard way has left you with one very large television.

In the end, you decide to take 10,000P; you'll have plenty in the bank for later and enough on hand to purchase a few small things. You can get candy for yourself and for Togetic, a toy or such for Duskull, and probably a small piece of furniture for Rats to chew. The remainder will go in with the rest under your mattress. You aren't sure why it's traditional for humans to store money under mattresses, and Absol hasn't been able to explain it to you, but you suppose that's as good a place as any. At least it keeps it out of the way.

You walk out of the Center as easily as you entered and stand outside, squinting in the Fuchsia sunshine. No one looks at you twice, and why would they? You are only Nicholas Garret, one trainer among many, and, you certainly hope, not well-known. You are carrying his pokédex, wearing his face and his name. No one will know you're dead for a couple of weeks at least, not until they find the body, and in the meantime you can enjoy all the luxuries of being him. This is all routine for you now; it has been quite some time since you stood dumb and awed on the threshold of a Pokémon Center, gleaming-new pokédex in hand and not a clue what you needed to do with it.

You set out down street, thinking half of heading to the beach, half of heading north and west instead, up to Celadon to get your shopping done. Or maybe you should go home instead. Nicholas Garret did have one pokémon you intend to welcome into your fold, though it probably won't be easy. Titan was always stubborn, and he likely took your death harder than Rats. He won't like to hear about his second trainer dying, either.

One way or another, it will be good to see him again. What few memories remain of him you've pored over so many times they've gone dull and distorted, as much fantasy now as they are fact, but they are all dear ones. You're sure that he'll come around eventually. He swore with you, just like the others. And someday not far in the future, you'll set out to fulfill your promise together.

For another moment more you stand there, wavering. Then you see a pair of trainers passing, chatting and enjoying ice cream cones, and are overwhelmed by a desire for sugary things and the gaudy bustle of the mall. And after all, you've waited years to be reunited with Titan; what's another little detour? You head west towards Cycling Road, visions of spectacular purchases dancing in your head.

Absol calls you hopelessly materialistic. You call her a wet blanket.

* * *

The child slams open the door and staggers through. There is a grumpy complaint from the raticate dozing in a puddle of sun just inside, but it brushes this aside, along with the concern of a duskull that materializes from a dark corner. It's clutching a pokeball so tight that the blisters on the back of its hand have burst and are dripping blood, but it's too angry to notice the pain.

It storms into the study and hauls open a desk drawer, revealing old egg cartons with dozens of pokeballs shuddering in their depressions. It hurls the ball it's carrying into an empty one so hard all the rest jump. Then the child slams the drawer closed and stands there glaring at it until a wave of dizziness forces it to lean forward and grab the edge of the desk for support.

It can't stand here forever. The child looks down at itself, does a thorough inspection of the damage. Its shirt is rent open from just above the right hip almost all the way up to its heart, and its left arm is bubbled with half-healed burns. The gash on its chest is already scabbing over, but the clothes are ruined, soaked in blood where they aren't torn.

What a mess. It's always such trouble to find attire to match what's on a corpse, since the original is rarely in any condition to be worn again—trainers rarely go quietly in their sleep. And now it's going need to go out and find replacements.

The child gives the drawer one last accusatory glower. No sense worrying about that now; at the moment it's in no condition for anything but rest. It turns and limps off towards the bedroom, stopping briefly to smile at Duskull, who is hovering nearby and making grumbly little noises of concern. The child will rest, now; and next time it will wait for rain before making a move.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Today you are Jade Winstead, and you are no one. You have no family or friends, and your fingerprints are the fingerprints of a dead child. Your face is modeled after one of your favorite television characters, and more than once someone has stopped you in the street, mistaking you for her. This is more attention than you would like, but your attempts at building a face from scratch were worse.

This morning you are at one of your favorite paper-reading spots, by the window of the Fuchsia pokémon center with a cup of center coffee close to hand. It's terrible coffee, bitter as sin and almost slimy-tasting, but it's an important part of the scene.

The scene is very important. It also includes Togetic, who sits on the table just beyond reach, humming stickily to herself as she devours a melty lemon slush-on-a-stick from one of the street vendors outside. It will take her a few more minutes to finish it and longer still to clean the yellow residue from her face and feathers, so you consider her well-occupied for the near future. And the most important part of the scene is the newspaper spread open in front of you.

You're about halfway done reading it now, and your mind is starting to wander. You've already checked all the good bits—the funnies, the training section, and, of course, the obituaries. At this point you've even choked down most of the boring stuff—the _news _news, about people who do things other than train pokémon, some of whom are even foreigners, as though you have any reason to care about _them_.

Absol is very insistent that you read the whole paper, yes, the _whole _thing, regularly. It is important, she says, to understand what is going on in the world around you. You never know what you're going to find out if you keep your eyes open. You'd pointed out that _she _didn't read the paper. "Pokémon and humans have different ways of learning things," she'd said, not even batting an eye. "I know what I need to know." You had pointed out that you were just as much pokémon as you were human. "Yes. So you need to do both." What exactly she'd meant by that, she couldn't explain.

Whatever her way of learning things is, you bet it's a whole lot more fun than newspapers. But at least your newspapers have ads, so it not all bad.

So this is your scene: you have your coffee and your pokémon, your newspaper and your name, and you have the sunlight, too, pouring in through the center's tall front windows. You imagine it like you're a character in a movie, a real adult human, living her life. It's a normal life, just like the ones you've seen on television. And if you just turn your head a little, look out the window beside you, you can watch a parade of other normal humans going past on the street outside.

That's part of what draws you to the center and your other haunts. You're out in the public eye, when you could more safely take the news in at your house or some other secluded place. But there's some kind of herd instinct buried down deep in your body, and you like to be out here, where you can see and be seen by humans. You aren't one of them anymore, and you can't really belong to their little circle of being, but you can sit at its edge and watch, and to some extent, pretend.

You watch the adults, striding along on personal errands, ferrying children through the crowd, sitting outside a cafe for lunch—is that what you should be like now, settling into a life under your own power, caring about all those names in the newspaper, talking about money and jobs and sex the way they do on television? You watch the children—is that how you were, once, looking around with eyes joyful at the sight of ice cream vendors, the colorful tableau of the beach? Would you have been clutching a parental hand or running with a gaggle of young ruffians, loud and rude and thoroughly enjoying your age?

You wonder. This is what you come to Fuchsia to do: read the paper; enjoy the tropical weather; and consider what might have been. That's enough for you. Sometimes the city gives you something more, though. Sometimes it offers you a surprise.

The doors to the center slide open and two men you recognize walk through. One is short, dumpy, tanned; the other tall but stooped, pale and sunken and uncomfortable in his rumpled suit. Behind the pair a porygon-Z drifts, its limbs and head in constant, subtle motion, never all pointing in the same direction. These are Officer Feldhorn, chief of the Fuchsia City police, and Leonard Kerrigan, systems administrator of the Kanto Pokémon League network.

They approach the desk, Leonard setting a slender laptop on the counter, discussing something with the nurse. Officer Feldhorn isn't paying much attention, his eyes wandering over the room while he sips from the thermos that accompanies him everywhere.

A sharp rap on the table in front of you summons Duskull. He drifts up out of the wood, just enough so that his red eye can glow out at you, and you nod towards the desk. The red light swivels to look, and Duskull gurgles quietly in acknowledgement, then sinks back out of view, off to spy on Leonard. This isn't likely to gain you much, as Duskull finds human conversations dull and full of things he doesn't understand, so his reporting often leaves something to be desired. You'll take what you can get.

Even with your less-than-reliable spy, you've managed to compile quite a bit about Leonard. He's a special case, a person you care about, even though he is not in your little collection of souls. You've done your research, over the years, and grown to know him better than any other human, though you've never exactly been introduced. Above all, though, you know one thing.

Leonard has a calling. He wasn't expecting it. He hadn't been expecting the job, either, back when he was a grubby, arrogant teenager and they'd given him the choice: prison until he was old enough to be worrying about his prostate, or a second chance defending the borders he'd spent most of his adolescence attacking. "Take it, kid," they'd said. "It's the best offer you're going to get, and who knows? Maybe you'll even manage to make something of yourself." They'd said he'd be watching over all the trainers in the league, and their pokémon, too, just another member of the bureaucracy. They hadn't said he would be a grave keeper.

Leonard has a calling, and it's one he neither asked for nor wanted. Once, he had a job, and that was fine. It was a good job, frustrating at times, but interesting enough. He still has the job, but only because without it, he can't have the calling. What joy there was in it has been forgotten. Once, he had a family, a wife and a son. Now he has neither, though one was given up and one was taken away. Once, he had friends. Now he only has people who look on him with pity and whose phone calls he ignores. Soon, he will not have these either. But even then, he will still have his calling.

The great digital brain of the League records everything, from the first step each trainer takes after receiving their license to the origin and life history of every pokémon passing through their hands. Leonard stands at the nerve center, watching the data flow in from all the league's sensory organs, the pokédexes that every trainer must carry to be considered legal. The pokédex observes everything, records everything, surely knows more than the trainer herself about everything that has happened on her journey: every item purchased; every trainer battled, and the outcome of that battle; every visit to a pokémon center. It is Leonard's job to guard the ever-widening river of information, to see that it flows freely in the wires, to make sure that the grand architecture of the system is never undermined.

It is his job, too, to be the caretaker of all the league's lost souls, the children and adults who perished while pursuing their dreams. Once, he didn't think much of them. But then, one day, something happened. His son became one of the ghosts. And then, his son refused to stay dead. And then Leonard found he had a calling.

It had been a mistake. You were so young, then, so careless; you had no idea what you were doing. Certainly you had no idea who Leonard Kerrigan was, or why he should matter to you at all. But you'd screwed up, and now he is on to you, in his hopeless, blundering way. You don't really know what he thinks is going on, since he never speaks of it to the public, and you can glean little information from these infrequent sightings. All you knew is that he can't possibly be right or, well, you would have been found out already.

For Leonard has a calling, and that calling is to find _you_. He will discover what happened to his son and, you have no doubt, he will make those responsible _pay_. He is no small man in Kanto, Leonard Kerrigan, not even after his fall from grace. And he is your enemy.

You watch him now, see the slump in his shoulders, the shuffle in his walk as he leaves the desk and selects one of the center PC's, the one you'd used earlier, when you were Nicholas Garret. You see the gray in his hair and the lines on his face. He's growing old, is Leonard Kerrigan. He's collapsing in on himself like an old piece of fruit rotting from the inside, and you revel in every moment of his demise. What would he do, if he knew the one he was chasing was sitting not fifty feet away, watching his every move?

"Hello there, Jade! Returning to the scene of the crime, are we?"

You start at the sound of the voice, tearing your eyes off Leonard and only just remembering not to bare your teeth. "No, Officer Feldhorn. I did not know there was a crime."

"Just a figure of speech," the man says cheerfully, and you glower inwardly over the misunderstanding. "Seems we're always running into each other when I'm checking out something at the Center."

Now that the initial surprise has worn off, you aren't worried. Television has taught you that there are two kinds of cops in the world: the hard-bitten, driven servants of justice who will stop at nothing to put criminals behind bars, and those whose greatest exertions are in pursuit of donuts. There is no doubt in your mind which camp Officer Feldhorn falls into. Under the sharp bitterness of the coffee in his thermos, you can smell custard and powdered sugar about his person. "It's a small world," you hazard.

"That it is," he says, and you relax; a successful deflection. Perhaps this conversation isn't going to be a total loss after all. "How's life with you, then? I see your togetic's doing well."

Togetic chirps assent, then goes back to grooming herself. The popsicle stick lies abandoned on the table in front of her. "It's going well. Nothing new." Pause. "What about you?"

"Well, Fuchsia is Fuchsia, you know. It's pretty quiet. Last week some kids tried to break into the Safari Zone and bag themselves a few dratini, but that's about it."

"Well. That's good. What brings you here today, then? You've brought that man with you again, whatever his name was." You revel in your own cunning and subtlety.

Officer Feldhorn turns to look back at Leonard, who is going through his ritual at the computer station: a few mysterious incantations on the keyboard, then plug a cable from his laptop into the computer. Keys, keys, keys, then out with the cable, pack everything away. You know he has underlings that could be doing this for him; you know he can probably retrieve everything he wants remotely. But, alas, he has a calling. He has to be sure. He has to be here, to do it himself.

Duskull is there somewhere, hiding in the drooping plant on the center counter or haunting a ceiling light, out of sight of the porygon but able to get a look at what Leonard is doing. It won't do much good, since Duskull can't read, and all attempts at getting him to remember and recite the order of keys punched into the keypad have failed. He'll pick up whatever information he can, though. You never know what you might learn.

"Oh, yes." Officer Feldhorn frowns, which makes him look like a morose granbull; it's all you can do not to laugh. "It's the same old story. Glitches in the computer system, Leo over there getting all worked up about them and insisting we go off on some wild goose chase after the undead—you haven't seen the dead walking recently, have you?"

"I've seen a couple of ghost pokémon."

"Is that so? Well, you'd better keep an eye on them for me, then." Leonard has left the computer and is standing in the middle of the lobby, looking pointedly over at the two of you. Officer Feldhorn half turns and catches sight of him, grimaces. "Ah, but it looks like I'm about to be called away. Good to see you, Jade," he says.

"Later," you say, unable to resist showing off a little of your hip slang. You watch him go over and meet Leonard, the brief conversation—one man relaxed and jocular, the other tight as piano-wire, all indignation and irritation over not being taken seriously. They leave the center as they came in, and you can't help grinning to yourself as the center door slides shut behind them.

You _like _Officer Feldhorn. He has always been friendly to you, and you enjoy having someone human to talk to. It's good practice, talking with someone like him, someone harmless. Whenever you slip up, it doesn't really matter. You don't slip up so much anymore, though. These days, you consider yourself a downright sterling conversationalist.

Duskull returns and whispers what he's learned; there was some talk of a computer upgrade, replacing the old PC stations. No real news, then. Still no progress learning Leonard's login information, either, and you can tell by the tone of Duskull's voice that he wasn't really trying, either. You let it go. You're feeling too cheerful to let a little thing like that spoil your mood.

Things are coming to a head now. There's only two of them left, and Leonard has one. Once you've found the other, Absol cannot object to your confronting him directly. She even said it—wait, and if it has not come back to you by the time you find the others, then you must do what you must do. You look forward to it. For there is no one and nothing that can stand between you and the mission, especially not when its name is only Leonard Kerrigan. He's been a thorn in your side for too long; it will be a pleasure to finally remove him entirely.

You take a sip of your coffee, and your smug grin turns to a grimace. If it it's bad hot, it's unspeakable cold. Across the table from you, Togetic giggles at your expression. She's nearly done cleaning herself up. You glance out the window, past the rows of houses and down the slope of the hill to the beach. The waves sparkle invitingly in the sunlight. You look down at your unfinished paper, then back out at the surf and sand.

Why not? Absol will never know. Today is a good day. Everything is going right. What better time to celebrate?

Jade Winstead leaves the Fuchsia Town pokémon Center, her togetic following, a duskull ghosting along in the shadows behind. She weaves through the crowd and turns off onto a little side-street, disappears into a shadowy alley. She doesn't come out again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

It wakes to the sound of rain. At first it actually smiles, snuggling down farther in the blankets and imagining a comfortable day spent lazing around the house. Then it frowns and rolls onto its side, flopping an arm across its forehead. Now it remembers why it's been waiting for the rain. It could have conjured up a storm whenever it wanted, of course, but it _hadn't_, had been perfectly content to wait for nature to provide. Now the rain is here and there is no more excuse for delay. It lies in bed longer than usual, and when it gets up, it can do no more than shoot the television a mournful look. This morning, there is work to be done.

The pokéball is retrieved from its place in the drawer. The card in the pokédex is exchanged. A grumpy raticate is roused. All is made ready. It sighs, ducks its head, and plunges out into the dripping forest.

* * *

You have to dodge almost immediately after Charizard takes shape from his pokéball. He's nearly faster than you, but you remember the nasty scratch he gave you last time and make a point of moving a little quicker than normal. "Charizard, hey! Hey-!"

"That's not my name!" The hiss of rain off his tail only lends his words extra bite. "Stop pretending!"

"Titan, Titan!" you try. It's the right name, but aside from the briefest flicker of surprise, the snarl plastered across his muzzle doesn't change. "Come on, I just need to talk to you. Come on."

"Talk? Talk?! My trainer's _dead_! And you were there! You know! Stop pretending!"

"I'm your trainer! I'm not dead!" A flamethrower sizzles through the fallen leaves just beside you. In the sodden air, they give off heavy smoke, but no more. "Calm down. How many times do we have to go through this?"

But he doesn't calm down. How long can this go on? He's been raging at you since the day you died, and letting him cool off in his pokéball hasn't had the slightest effect on his ire. He doesn't trust you, and you can't understand why. You _are _Nicholas Garret now. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that you're all that's left of him.

Titan lunges, claws rippling with the blueflame that isn't touched by water. The rain is making him sluggish, though, streaming off his scales and dampening his tail flame. You are able to catch him now, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him to the ground. His claws dig into your side, but it doesn't matter. The dragon claw is weak enough now that it barely hurts.

"Why won't you listen to me?" you ask, trying to hang on despite the thrashing. "Why don't you want to help me? I'm your _trainer_. Don't you want to help your trainer?"

"My trainer is dead!" he chokes, struggling to reach you with too-short arms. "You're just someone who looks like him. You're not even a real person! What are you?"

"I'm Nicholas Garret! I'm no one else!" you insist, feeling the blood mix with the rain as it rolls down the inside of your shirt. Damn. Now you'll need to mend these clothes again.

"You're not! You're _not_! Liar!" His voice is hoarse now, a kind of choked scream that is more rattle than sound. You realize that you may have been hugging his throat too tightly. You loosen your hold and receive thanks in the form of a flamethrower rushing out past your head, setting your hair on fire, immolating the edge of your ear.

"I'm not lying." The urge to put a hand up to your injured ear and whimper is strong, but you're stronger. Instead, you just let go. You fall back to the muddy ground with an unhappy sapling digging into your back. Titan staggers to his feet, head rearing towards the cloudy sky overhead and stubby arms reaching for the bruising at his throat. He coughs, sputtering flame, and you grab Rats' pokéball off your belt and release her onto the ground next to you.

"Here—if you don't want to talk to me, why don't you talk to Rats instead? You remember Rats, don't you? You can trust her. She'll tell you what's going on."

Titan's face swoops back down as he practically presses his snout up against Rats' nose, staring at the raticate in utmost suspicion. Rats backs up nervously, muttering a greeting and staring warily back into the angry charizard's face. Then she has to throw herself sideways, just as you did earlier, as a gush of fire shoots from Titan's mouth.

"Hey. Hey! Is that any way to treat an old friend?" the raticate grumbles, then takes off again as another flamethrower rushes her way. "What, don't you remember me, you stupid lizard?"

"You could be anybody," Titan roars, twisting around to keep the raticate in his line of sight. Rats is dancing back and forth now, on guard for more fire. Now that Titan is no longer looking at you, you get quietly to your feet and back up a little, just to be safe. "You think I can tell the difference between all the raticate I've ever met? You all look the same: big, hairy—big, hairy _rats_!"

"Ooh, so that's how it is, huh? Well, how about this, _Titan_, would just any raticate remember that time you totally got beat up by that magikarp you'd—oof!" Titan's tail snaps around, catching Rats off guard and knocking her onto her side. Then Titan is on her with teeth and claws and flame, and Rats can do nothing but shriek disparaging comments about Titan's parentage as she struggles to overcome the charizard.

Unfortunately, it looks as though long days lounging around on the island have dulled Rats' battling skills far more than you'd realized. Titan easily overwhelms her, pinning the raticate in the mud beneath one heavy foot while he stares down at his opponent, smoke streaming warningly from his nostrils.

"I don't know what you're doing working with that _thing_, and I don't care! My trainer is dead, and it was watching. There's _nothing _you can say that will make that right!"

You recall Rats before Titan can incinerate her; the raticate is too weak to escape, and Titan clearly has no interest in listening to her. You briefly consider raising the other pokéball on your belt and recalling Titan, too, but shove the thought away. The situation isn't going to get better by putting off the confrontation again, and it will only make you weak in Titan's eyes.

The charizard lurches sideways, foot splashing heavily in the mud as Rats dissolves from beneath it. Then he turns to look back at you, lips twisting up to show his fangs, water misting from his nostrils as he snorts out more smoke. "Is that the best you can do, you lying little human-thing?"

"I'm not lying," you say again. You are, indeed, the only Nicholas Garret left, Titan's trainer. He needs to learn to obey you, and it looks as though you're going to have to do the teaching yourself.

Titan opens his mouth, sucking in a great breath of air. You raise crossed arms in front of your face, palms out towards the Charizard.

Titan's throat glows as fire rushes up to gather at the back of his mouth. The ball of flame grows larger and larger, flickering out around his teeth. Dancing red and orange fills your vision. Titan lets all his air out in a rush, blowing the fireball straight at you. You make no attempt to dodge—and then Titan is screaming, twisting away, as the fire blast strikes the glinting barrier that has appeared in front of you. Brilliant streamers of light burst from the midst of the flames and arc back towards him, searing his scales and evaporating raindrops straight out of the air.

He falls to the ground, hiding his face behind his claws as scalding energy roars around him, the mud at his sides bubbling and letting off a hideous stink. He can't see what it's costing you, holding the mirror coat in place. Your raised arms tremble as the glittering sheet of light between you and the last of the fire splinters, crumbling away into nothing. You let your arms fall and try to remain standing, waiting to be able to force your body to move again. It's bad enough for you, and you were only hit by one fire blast; Titan took the force of two.

After a couple of minutes you gather your strength and stagger over to where he lies, breathing harsh and eyes distant. His tail shudders in the hot muck, burning lower now, but not low enough to be dangerous.

You fall to your knees in the mud in front of him, oblivious to the slop getting all over your clothing. Reaching down, you lift his head; his small arms shudder as he tries to raise his body with it. You bring his face to eye level, close enough that a lick of flame would be enough to do you in, engulf your entire head in fire. You'll have to watch his eyes closely to know when to pull away.

Titan's scales are feverish to the touch; he's weak enough now that he can't control his inner fire, and it's starting to eat him up from the inside. He's more powerful for the moment, but he can't stand it for long. "What… are…" His voice is hardly more than a croak.

"What do I need to do for you to accept me as your trainer?"

"I don't… you're not my trainer. My trainer is dead."

"Bullshit!" He flinches, something wary in his expression. His gaze is trying to slip away from yours, but you wrench his head around to keep his eyes on you. "What do I need to do?"

"Can't… you can't make me."

"I don't _need _to 'make' you. I'm your trainer. Stop trying to deny it."

"…dead…"

"That's what you wish, isn't it? You wish I were dead!" You're screaming now, and his wings flare open in shock, beating wildly as he tries to pull away from you. You see in his eyes and the tensing of his muscles that the moment is now, and you're forcing his head down even as the fire starts to gush out around his teeth. The flamethrower is lost as you force his face into the mud, and he thrashes harder, gagging as a gasp of shock sucks the foul stuff into his mouth. You wrench his head up again and stare into his tearing eyes.

"I don't."

"Fuck that! I'm your trainer! You were _there_! You know! Stop pretending!"

His eyes show white; he's probably too terrified to hear his own words thrown back at him. "I can't."

"You liar! You _liar_!" You let his head drop back into the mud, and he just leaves it lying there, the rain washing the tears off his muzzle. "What do I need to do?"

While Titan tries to control his sobbing, you try to control your temper, just kneeling where you are, soaking in the rain and the mud, and flexing fingers that long to turn to claws. You're glad you're human, for the moment; it's hard enough to keep your head when you've been fighting, but as a pokémon, it's even harder. "Please. I don't understand. Who are you?" the charizard says at last, and you almost can't understand him for the hitching in his voice.

You would sympathize, if you weren't so frustrated. It took you years to figure things out. But for now, he already has the facts: "I told you. I'm Nicholas Garret. Your _trainer_."

That is enough to bring Titan out of his funk, if only for a moment. He glares up at you from the mud, wings flaring to emphasize his words. "No! I saw him die. You look like him, but you act like you're someone else." He blows out a muddy, exasperated snort. Then he turns away from you, almost speaking to himself as his wings start to droop again. "But they died, too. They're both dead."

"I was someone else before. I could be someone else tomorrow. Right now, I'm Nick. But what doesn't change is that I'm your trainer, and I need you to help me. What will it take for you to accept that?"

He takes another one of those great breaths, but this time you don't bother preparing for an attack. He just chokes on it, turning it into a sob. "Please… you told me you would save her."

You punch him in the snout as hard as you can, hard enough to dislodge teeth. "You _bastard_. You know I can't do that without you." You push yourself to your feet, shaky. He keeps his eyes on the ground, blood leaking from his mouth. It might be a while before he realizes you've left.

* * *

In the end, the child has to use what's left of Nick's shirt to bandage the dragon claw wound. Too much excitement—it's lost a lot of blood, and if it loses much more, it won't be able to make it back to the house.

Some hours later, when it's resting in bed, it hears the door open and something large blunder inside. It smiles and hugs the sheets more tightly around itself. It'd known the rain wasn't enough to be dangerous, even with the injuries that Titan had sustained, but it's glad the charizard was able to find his way here, where he will be safe.

The kitchen table falls with an incredible crash, and the child can imagine the soaked and muddy charizard slipping around on the tiles, searching wearily for somewhere warm to curl up and dry off. That's fine. It doesn't mind the damage. It'll see to the charizard in the morning, when it's feeling well enough to walk again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

You walk into the Cinnabar Pokémon Center with a calm assurance born of practice, Rats and Titan resting exhausted in the pokéballs at your waist. Not far away, perhaps, your water-bloated corpse rests at the bottom of Seafoam Caverns. This doesn't bother you, but Cinnabar itself does. You've had good memories here, but this is also where you died—it's a hard thing to overlook. And there's something else, too, on this sunny little island; some kind of wrongness in the soil, maybe, something alien rolling on the waves. In the past decade, what has this place seen?

There was the twisted excess of the Mewtwo project, that perversion of nature that ended flame and the death for most of the island's population, those who worked in the slick research facility dominating its northwestern corner. And then, barely five years later, the volcano erupted one quiet morning, completely out of the blue, sweeping away all the rest on a tide of lava and ash.

You were there, in fact, that very day, playing in the shallows and digging aimlessly in the sand. It was the first time you saw Absol do her appearing act, not even stepping from shadow like she normally did but just _there_, suddenly, grabbing your arm in her teeth and dragging you away along the dark paths even as the sand beneath your feet began to tremble. Few were lucky enough to have such a friend. Few remain who can recount that fateful day, Gym Leader Blaine among them.

With a friend like Absol, it's hard not to be superstitious, because you know that even if _you _aren't, certain others _are_, and they do their best to see the dictates of karma carried out. But even if you weren't superstitious, you think you'd probably be a bit wary of living here on Cinnabar. The place has come back—the gym reinstalled near the volcano's fiery heart, new resorts hogging the shoreline. But so far, the people have not, not really; the Pokémon Center is quiet, only a few trainers hanging out around the television, and overly-exuberant banners are draped across the high-rises, advertising the rooms still to be had.

You turn over your pokéballs and idle by the desk, peering with interest at the Center computers. They're new, their plastic still shiny and smooth, not scuffed and dented from contact young trainers. They appeared two weeks ago, not long after you started training with Titan again, and you haven't tried using one yet. Today, though, you need money, so you'll get a chance to experience the wave of the future for yourself.

Once your pokémon have been healed, you wander over, give the new terminals a good inspection. You slide your pokédex into a slot and don't even flinch when the machine razzes at you. You nearly had a heart attack the first time that happened, nearly blew your cover in the most dramatic way possible, but now you have more experience. You lean into the screen, calm, unruffled, to read the error message. By now you know that this is the only way to keep safe, to keep unnoticed; if you give any sign of weakness, they'll be on you in a moment.

But the message is not one you understand. "ERROR: Access Denied. This pokédex has been blacklisted. Please see the front desk for assistance." You'd expected it to tell you that you'd inserted the thing wrong. Annoyed, you press the "Pokédex Eject" button.

The machine razzes at you again, and you almost jump in surprise. Another consultation with the screen gives you no new information. It's the same message staring back at you, hateful and red. You press the button again and grit your teeth as another loud buzz grates against your ears.

It's getting hard to remain calm. You're leaving sweaty fingerprints on the keypad now as you jam the button over and over again, the terminal's buzz droning in your ears and making your heart rate climb. Still the flashing error remains onscreen; still your pokédex stays locked in the depths of the machine. You grit your teeth and press down harder on the button, your eyes starting to blur with tears-

"Excuse me? Is something wrong?"

The nurse. The _nurse_. You spin around so fast she flinches back, staring at you like you're an agitated animal who might lash out and bite her, and she doesn't know how right she is. You can feel your body starting to shift, starting to forget your human mask and respond to your boiling emotions. You quickly rub a hand over your face, wipe the tears out of your eyes and massage the muscles back into place. Then you take a deep, shuddering breath, try to drown the terror pounding at your insides, and make an attempt at communication.

"Yes. The thing took—I do not know." You gesture helplessly at the computer, then watch the nurse like a hawk as she makes a cautious approach, peers at the message herself. You don't let yourself hope that she'll know what's going on, that she'll be able to _get it back_. That's not why you're leaning forward to watch, that's not why your breathing's picked up again.

"Oh," the nurse says, her forehead creasing in a frown. "It's these new models. There's something about a change in policy, trying to crack down on pokédex theft, I think." She turns and gives you a reassuring smile. "I'm sure it's just a glitch or something. They're still getting the kinks worked out on these things. Somebody'll be over in a few minutes to look at it, and they'll be able to get it all sorted out for you. I'll call and make sure they have someone on the way."

You are not reassured. In fact, it is as though the nurse has torn open your torso and poured a bucket of ice water into your guts. There is no glitch. This is not a mistake. They've found your dead body, marked you down deceased in their eternal electronic records. This time, they are not content to let you walk the world of the living. They've taken your pokédex and now they're coming here, to retrieve it, to retrieve _you_.

There is a flash of hot and then cold again in the depths of your chest. "They" aren't coming. Leonard Kerrigan. This is his doing. _He _stole it. Now _he _is the one coming, to confront you at the last.

The nurse is still looking at you, the frown back on her face. "Are you all right?" she asks. "Would you like a glass of water?"

You turn away from her gaze, shake your head. You rake your fingers through your hair, sweaty down at the roots, and try to focus. Try to concentrate. "I..." you start to say. "I am..." You are what? You are _whom_? You are—Nicholas Garret, you went to visit the Seafoam Islands, you slipped, you fell, you died. You are—trapped inside the machine, all that's left of you, the little card, the little card that tells you who you are. Who are you without it? Who are you now? Who are you? "I am..."

You are faintly aware of the nurse saying something else, backing away from you. You can feel the eyes of the other trainers on you. Now you are making a scene. You can't help it. Your hands are shaking. Your heart is racing. Thoughts are pounding so hard inside your skull that your temples are throbbing. He took your pokédex. He has no right! It's all you have! It _is _you!

You make some kind of guttural noise, a choked scream, and shove the nurse out of the way so you can get at the terminal again. You plunge your arm straight through the screen, shattering the mocking words, ignoring the glass in your arm, the shards of plastic and spitting wires. Your heart flutters before you remember to toughen your skin against the electricity, and you reach ever deeper, tearing apart the insides of the machine, searching.

Your fingers brush against something smooth and metallic, a box jutting inwards from the computer's plastic skin. You seize it and wrench it free, hauling it out of the wreckage. It's the device reader, your pokédex still caught inside, but it's safe now, it's free, it's in your hands. You cradle it against your chest like an injured paw, but it's your arm that's injured, running with blood, burns and cuts all up and down its length. The terminal in front of you is ruined, its screen caved in and smoke pouring out of the hole, pops emanating from inside as severed wires short.

You turn around, grinning. It's okay. You have it again. It's safe. And your eyes meet the horrified stares of every trainer in the place, most now on their feet. A couple are releasing pokémon.

Your smile only gets wider. Something seems to have come loose in your head. You can't think. But you feel you ought to say something into the stunned silence. Something witty and apt. You flip through your mental notebook, looking for the right phrase.

And there it is. Still grinning, you say, "Don't worry, I can pay for that." Then you lean forward over the pokédex and charge for the doors.

–

The child lies curled on the bed, sobbing and shaking in the dark. Its grip on the pokédex is so tight it can feel the pulse beating in its fingertips, and the device's metal casing has grown warm from the heat of its body. Duskull floats nearby, his single eye giving off a cold exit-sign glow. His presence is comforting; some of the child's earliest memories from this life are of the damp and the cold and the light, the little red light, of Duskull, watching. It cried a lot then, too.

It is not badly hurt, although it's healed itself too quickly, and the skin's closed around and trapped some shards of glass in its flesh. They'll need to be dug out later. More blood will have to flow, but for now, tears are enough. The child cries not because it is in pain, but for the sheer _wrongness _of it. They tried to take the pokédex, its most precious possession, its very _identity_. How could they? What gave anyone the right to steal its soul?

But underneath the horror, the _dirty _feeling of having someone's sweaty hand close around its spirit, is the sour ache of shame. It knows who's behind this all. Leonard Kerrigan, with his cold sad eyes and tired face, he's the one who nearly brought it low. It had thought it had the upper hand; it had thought the man was no real threat. And it had been wrong, oh, so very wrong. It sobs and sobs until its whole body aches, like its every muscle has been wrung dry. It holds the pokédex as tightly as it can and vows to never let it go. Never ever again will they have the chance to take it.

Soon Absol appears. The child doesn't actually see her come in, but there is the whisper of footsteps on the carpet, and then the pokémon leaps up next to it. Absol settles within easy reach and permits the child to throw its arms around her neck, endures being dripped on, overlooks the fact that her ruff is getting gummed with snot.

Once the deluge has slackened to intermittent showers, she speaks. "What happened?"

The child tells her, stopping now and again as the recounting brings more tears. Absol listens quietly, then remains so for some time afterwards, thinking. The child waits. Finally, Absol says, "That is unfortunate. You will have to be more careful."

"I don't want to be more careful. I have to get him back, Absol. I can't let him do this to me. I need to get War back and not have to worry about him anymore."

"Seeking revenge is a sure way of making a mistake."

"I don't care. I _don't care_." The child turns its back on Absol, curling into a ball around the pokédex again. It can feel her eyes on it, always the same calm, incurious stare. "He tried to steal from me, Absol. He _already _stole from me, and now he's not just taking one pokémon, he's trying to take _all _of them. I have to make him pay. He shouldn't be able to do that."

"It is not yet his time. We have discussed this before."

"That was different!" The child pounds its free fist on the mattress. The other still holds the pokédex close. "I can't do it anymore, Absol. I don't want to wait. I'm not _going _to. If I ignore him, he's only going to get closer to the truth. It's _more _dangerous not to go after him now." This is what it says to Absol, not that it wants to see the look on the man's face as he realizes what's going on, realizes that he really has lost _everything_, and there's nothing he can do about it. He will be powerless, and he will know it. And he will never again, never ever again, dare to bother the child about its business.

But Absol would be disapproving. She already is disapproving; the child can hear it in the long pause before she speaks. But she doesn't understand. An absol bears no grudges, names no enemies, holds none dear. The child knows this. Sometimes, it wishes it could be like Absol, eternally serene, eternally detached.

"Wait until you have rested. Think it over. You will see that I am right," she says.

The child doesn't care if she's right. She probably _is—_that's the exasperating thing about Absol. It wants to answer the burning anger flooding its body, not listen to her measured reason. "It won't matter. He has to be punished, Absol. I can't let him do this to me."

Absol shifts over so that her back is up against the child's, and the heat of her body soaks in through its shirt. "Rest," she says. "We will talk more later."

–

The child wishes there were some way to avoid the news. Absol's displeasure was bad enough when she'd heard its own take on events; no doubt a report would bring even more embarrassing facts to light. Of course, Absol is no fool; she insists. "We must know what the humans are thinking," she says, and trots out into the living room without bothering to look back, knowing that the child must eventually follow.

They sit on opposite sides of the couch. Rats, who was there first and therefore has pick of the space, is curled asleep between them. The child is grateful for this physical buffer between itself and Absol; it's much easier to ignore her signs of disapproval at this distance than if they were right next to each other.

The child turns the television to one of the twenty-four hour news channels and, sure enough, finds itself staring into security footage of its little tantrum. Absol watches without comment as the computer terminal is destroyed, while the child shrinks back into the cushions in cringing shame. After all this time, it thought it had a better handle on its human act than _that_.

Meanwhile, commentators chatter over the silent tape. "Yeah, I see where they're coming from," says one. "I mean, the way he just stuck his whole arm in there like that, didn't even care about the glass and stuff, that's not natural at all, I mean-"

"But he's bleeding," points out another, as the action moves on to the brawl between Nicholas Garret and the other trainers in the center. "I mean, have you ever heard of a zombie that bleeds?" Laughter.

The security tape ends with Nicholas Garret's successful escape out of the automatic doors, and the screen cuts back to the newscasters. "What you saw there was footage of an incident that occurred earlier today at the Cinnabar Pokémon Center. A trainer identified as Nick Garret of Cerulean City had a breakdown and destroyed a computer terminal, then injured several other visitors to the Center who tried to detain him. What makes this case interesting, though, is that Nick was found dead in Seafoam Caverns just last week."

The second anchor cut in to add to the intrigue. "The whole thing started when the computer Nick was using refused to return his pokédex, causing him to panic and destroy the terminal to recover it. This pokédex quarantine is a recent change in policy. Previously, trainers with suspicious pokédexes would be flagged by the network but allowed to continue using the device without penalty for a short period of time. Shortly after the incident, the League held an official press conference to discuss the motivation for the change and its relation to today's events."

The screen cuts to a tape of a harassed-looking young man leaning heavily on a podium emblazoned with the Indigo League seal. Text at the bottom of the screen identifies him as Michael Fitzwallace, an administrator of the Indigo League Trainer's Network, and the child rises out of its pit of misery for long enough to wonder why Leonard isn't making an appearance. "Look," the man says, "we implemented the lockdown procedure in an attempt to curb the recent surge in pokédex theft by Team Rocket and other petty criminals. The grace period was long enough to allow thieves in possession of a suspicious 'dex to do serious damage to the previous holder's accounts before flipping it. That's all. And because the system isn't perfect, sometimes an innocent trainer is going to get flagged and have their pokédex taken away; the grace period was supposed to prevent that from happening by allowing time for spurious flags to be resolved."

"Whatever's going on with Nick, it's a job for the police to figure out. It's got nothing to do with us. The league does not believe the dead are walking in Kanto, and we are not discriminating against undead trainers. Questions?" He grins cockily at the camera for a moment, but his smile dissolves in the face of the clamor that follows—obviously he'd expected his wit to go over better, but the reporters aren't going easy on him. The child milks that for all the bitter amusement it's worth. He deserves it, the smug liar. _Nothing to do with us_. The smug, smug liar.

The picture bounces briefly back to the news desk, where the anchor says, "Nick's family has been unavailable for comment, but the funeral home where his memorial service was held last week reports that there was nothing odd about the proceedings or the body, and that it was definitely in the casket when it was put into the ground. Nick's grave site appears intact, and plans to exhume the corpse for inspection are on hold until forensic evidence comes back that positively identifies the trainer on camera as Nick. Electronic records show that the pokédex in use at the destroyed terminal was Nick's, however, and both eyewitness reports and security footage match his description. Sheira Miles is on-site at Cinnabar Island to speak with some of the trainers who witnessed the incident. Sheira?"

The child doesn't catch most of that. Its insides freeze over at the mention of "forensic evidence," and it simply can't concentrate on the rest. All it feels outside the cold prickling in its chest is Absol's gaze, burning a gut-turning spot of disapproval onto its shoulder. It can't meet her eyes. Its head fills with scenes from its favorite crime dramas, white-coated lab techs bustling about, mixing mysterious fluid, reading the glowing lines that say who it really is, the person hiding in the blood that spilled from Nicholas Garret's body. It hadn't even been thinking, hadn't been careful. How much blood would they be able to recover? Enough, it thought. How much did they even need? Only the tiniest drop...

Unable to take its eyes from the screen, the child watches dully as a smiling woman chats with a few trainers it distantly recalls having seen in the Center. "...not human," a teen was saying for the camera. "I mean, the dude punched out a fucking _feraligatr_, like, one hit, _bam!_ It was crazy."

"And the person was definitely Nick Garret?"

"He looked like the guy in the picture you showed me, yeah."

Beside you, Absol makes a noise. It's not much of anything, a faint cough, maybe, while she shifts pointedly around on the cushion. But it brooks no argument. _You aren't going to be able to avoid me forever, _it says. _And I'm starting to lose my patience_. Swallowing down its dread, the child turns to look at her. She's watching it, impassive. Waiting.

"See? See? I told you, they did something. They took my pokédex, Absol. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't let them have it. What would happen then? What was I supposed to do?"

"You lost your temper."

"I know. I'm sorry. But what was I supposed to do? What would you do if—I mean, I tried. I tried to be calm. But I can't be calm like you, Absol." It clenches its hands into fists and looks down at its lap, taking deep breaths and trying to keep back tears. It knows Absol's eyes are on it now, and on the fact of it failing to stay calm _yet again_, and that makes everything so much worse. Absol waits.

"I know I screwed up. I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting it, and I panicked." It clenches its hands tighter, bent almost double into a little ball of misery, then grabs at its forehead, burying its fingers in its hair. Absol just watches. "What am I going to do now? What if they get my blood and figure out who I really am? What if they figure everything out, Absol? What am I going to do?"

"What do you think you should do?"

It doesn't know. But it knows what it _wants _to do.

"It's Leonard," the child says. "He's behind this. Whatever this new rule is, it's his fault somehow. It isn't safe to use the pokédex anymore, not like I used to. And what if they do manage to figure out who I am? They might figure everything else out, too. They might put all the others away where I'll never be able to find them. They might _find _me, Absol. What would I do then? If they find me and they stop me, then she'll be all alone. I have to save her, Absol. You know I do." It stops for a moment, mouth working on nothing and words catching in its throat. It grits its teeth again and forces the tears back, determined not to put on another pathetic display.

Absol just watches, then gives the faintest of nods, inviting the child to continue. It works its mouth a bit more, until it can finally unstick the words from its throat, and goes on. "So I have to get him. I have to stop Leonard, Absol. I know you don't like it. But it's the only way. I have to get War back from him before he figures everything out."

Absol's eyes narrow the merest fraction; her claws dig into the cushion beneath her. But she just watches. The child keeps going, spilling out the words as fast as it can, getting it over with, like plunging into an ice-cold lake. "So I'm going to go and get War back from him and make sure he can't do anything to stop me. If I'm lucky, I might be able to get Thunderstorm from him, too. Or at least he should be able to tell me where it is. And then, if I get Thunderstorm and War, that will be it, won't it? I can go and find her. It will all be over and I'll find her and it will all be okay."

"You should wait," Absol says. "I told you you should wait. _Patience_. You are panicking. You are losing your temper. Haven't you already done enough damage?"

"I can't wait forever, Absol! It's been years. What if it's already too late? What if we wait and wait and in the meantime, they, they—_do _something to her? They're hurting her, Absol. You know, when she talks to me I see—she's scared. She's hurting. We can't just _leave _her there."

"It will do no good rush in when the time is not right. You will only make things worse."

"But it's fate that we meet again anyway. Why does it matter if I speed it up some? Can you even prove that this _isn't _how things are supposed to go? Maybe I'm fated to get angry and go off and confront Leonard." They're old arguments, bickered on and off over the months and years prior. The child is making one last attempt, putting all it has on the line. If Absol doesn't agree—then she doesn't agree. It's just going to have to do it anyway. The thought of going against her puts a cold edge of unease alongside the flush of its anger.

"This is not fate," Absol says icily. "This is _vengeance_. And those who practice vengeance will only see it visited on themselves. I cannot stop you if this is what you wish to do. But neither will I be able to save you when fate turns back on you for it. It is not my place to intervene."

"I know it isn't. But maybe it's mine. Isn't that what humans do? Isn't that what you told me?" The child throws its hands up and tries to believe its own arguments. This isn't about vengeance. It _isn't_. It's just what needs to be done.

"You are _not _human."

"I know! But I'm not a pokémon, either. So maybe I get to choose."

Absol cants her head to the side, just slightly, and for a moment the child could swear she's smiling at it. When she speaks again, her tone isn't quite as acid as before. "Perhaps. But I would choose wisely. I have told you it is dangerous. You could be throwing everything you have away. But it is not my place to intervene." She jumps down from the couch and stands stretching a moment before turning back to the child. "At least wait a little while. Get some rest. Think it through. You should not decide this hastily."

She pads away, off towards the kitchen. The child scowls after her and sinks back in its seat, turning its eyes back to the screen and trying to focus on the news again. Some woman who claims to be an expert on surviving a zombie apocalypse is being interviewed. The inane chatter washes over the child but can't drown the dark churning of its mind.

Of course Absol doesn't understand. The child could swear that ice runs in her veins instead of blood. She wouldn't hurry if there was a tidal wave collapsing down on top of her; she wouldn't show a hint of anger if her entire family was murdered before her eyes. She doesn't understand how hard it is for the child, her and her perfect "fate" and her detachment and her always being right. She doesn't understand why it has to do this.

It's not just because Leonard is making its life difficult. That's annoying, but not much more. There is some humiliation in it, yes, in how it failed, and that is the only reason he has any power over it at all. But it's more than that, now, so much more. He's gone and put his dirty hands all over the child's _soul_. He tried to take the pokédex, the only thing it really has left. And the child can't let someone do that to it. Not now, not ever. It can feel bile rising in its throat just to think of it. Not now, not ever, _never_. It doesn't matter what Absol says. She doesn't understand.

The vapid news show is only making it more angry. It flips the channel to a loud cartoon instead, and Rats stirs as sounds of mayhem fill the air. She uncurls and blinks around blearily until her eyes focus on the child. She frowns. "What happened to you?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

She gives a little twitch of her whiskers, her equivalent of a shrug. "Okay." They sit and watch a pair of nidoran chasing each other around the screen, hitting each other over the head with mallets and playing pranks on their idiot trainer. While Rats enjoys the spectacle, chuckling to herself every now and then, the child watches it without watching, its mind still stewing.

Absol is right about one thing. It should think this over. And it is thinking it over, very, very carefully. It is considering everything it knows about Matt Kerrigan, every piece of information it has gathered over the years, and what it's going to do with them. It won't make the same mistakes it did last time. It is prepared, this time, to be Matt Kerrigan properly. Matt Kerrigan, the lost son. Matt Kerrigan, the suicide case.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

There's only one light burning in the Kerrigan household tonight, up in the study at the rear of the second floor. You can't actually see into the room from here, but you can picture the scene well enough: Leonard hunched before a keyboard in the semidark, fingers flying, casting his incantations over the computer.

What you _can _see from here is your old room. This is the very same spot you sat almost two years ago now, on the neighbors' roof, with legs dangling over the edge and eyes trained on the bedroom window just below your perch. Only that time, you were the one in the room dying while another waited outside with Absol, nervous and fidgety and unsure what to do. It had waited, because Absol told it to wait, and not interfere; there wasn't much to see, but somehow Absol knew when you had stopped breathing and prodded that one forward.

She'll be doing no prodding now. She watched you as you prepared, staring into the mirror trying to get the color of your eyes just right, testing your voice, fussing with your hair. She didn't say anything, though, and she didn't follow you when you left. Now it is her turn to wait and practice the art of noninterference.

But you haven't acted yet, and why? Your old room is dark and cold and empty, though you've sharpened your eyesight and can see through the gloom that it's exactly as it was that day, not even a bit dusty. From this angle you can't see, but you wonder—is the empty bottle of pills still sitting on the nightstand where it was left?

Leonard isn't the only one in the house. Gruff, the family's aged growlithe, is sleeping somewhere on the first floor; if you concentrate, you can just taste the edges of his dreams as they run in their confused little circles. He's no threat, surely—you'll be surprised if he even wakes up to come greet you. You run your fingers through your hair, on edge and not wanting to think about why, then grimace and tease it back into place. Honestly—after all the time you took getting it right in the first place.

This is stupid, you tell yourself. You've established everything you need to about the situation: Leonard is home. No one else is. It's not as though you're going to get a better opportunity. Irritated with yourself, you draw your legs up onto the roof and push yourself to your feet, then forcefully think yourself to the stoop.

Then, before you can hesitate, before you can talk yourself out of it, you ring the doorbell. Only now do you allow mild panic to set in. There's nothing you can do but stand and wait there, doubting, not fidgeting, _definitely _not fidgeting, as the seconds drag past. If only you didn't have to do this as a human. It would be easy to still the racing of your heart, to banish anxiety and anticipation entirely, but changing enough to do that would make it very hard for you to act like Matt Kerrigan.

Finally, you can hear movement inside the house. A light comes on in the foyer. The bolt turns, and the door opens a fraction. You find yourself looking into the face of Leonard Kerrigan, more haggard than usual, more disheveled. If he was planning to open the door further, he's forgotten. Instead, he's frozen staring out at you, the whites of his eyes huge and round in the semidarkness.

You'd been afraid that, in the heat of the moment, you'd forget all of your preparations. Your rehearsed lines would fly out of your head, and you'd be left a stammering idiot. But you find this is not the case. You channel all your nervous energy into a kind of poised focus and are able to summon up the casual smile you practiced in the mirror, nail the voice as you begin, "Dad..."

The door is open in an instant. Leonard Kerrigan throws himself at you, and _that _is when it all goes to hell.

You only barely resist the instinct to swat the man aside, as you would any other creature that jumped at you, and that moment of hesitation as you rein in your battle instincts leaves you no time to get out of his way. So it is that Leonard manages to catch hold of you, wrapping his arms inappropriately tightly around your torso. At least you manage to get your arms up and out of the way so they aren't pinned to your sides, but you're nevertheless stuck there, leaning out of Leonard Kerrigan's embrace, trying to make the minimum amount of contact, while he clings to you like a limpet for some reason.

Ah, wait. This is a "hug," isn't it? You've seen these before. You know how this works. Yes, definitely you do. You lean forward a bit and awkwardly drape your arms over Leonard Kerrigan's shoulders and wait, hopefully, for further indication of what you should do.

Unfortunately, Leonard isn't giving you any cues. He's got his face buried in your chest, and he's making the most horrific wailing noises. The longer you wait there, the more nervous you get—he's making a scene. Leonard's making a scene! What if someone comes to investigate the noise? What if someone sees you?

"Dad," you say. "We should go inside."

If he hears you, he doesn't give any sign. You try extricating yourself from the hug, starting to panic and not really caring if you're being rude. But Leonard won't let you go, and you're afraid if you push him away too hard, you'll hurt him. Not an unwelcome outcome, but one that might be bad for your cover.

"Dad," you say again. "Inside. We should go inside. Listen."

He's still not listening. You try walking forward, pushing him ahead of you, but that only threatens to get you even more tangled up with him. For a moment, exasperation replaces panic. You could pick him up and _carry _him into the house if you needed to. He's lighter than you expected, actually, thinner than he looks under his sweater. But your head is going round and round with confusion, and you can't remember if you ought to be that strong or not.

You're standing there wrestling with a crying man and for one instant you feel the insane urge to burst out laughing. You look down at the back of Leonard's head, draggled and unwashed and graying, and listen for a moment to his pathetic whimpering. "I always knew you weren't dead... nobody believed me that I saw you, but I knew it, I knew what I saw, I knew you would never k-ki..." And then he descends into incoherence again, sobbing and coughing on his own tears, and you are almost—honestly. Why does being human have to be so _confusing_?

You take a reflexive glance around to make sure no one's watching—not that you could really do anything if they _were_—then half shove, half carry the man back into the house in what you hope would be called a firm, not rough, manner, and shut the door behind you. You set Leonard firmly aside, taking a moment to be sure he's not just going to lunge at you again the moment you let go. He appears to be trying to get ahold of himself, though, not babbling anymore and wiping the tears from his eyes, so you take the moment of peace to have a look around.

Here in the foyer it's dim, only one light still working in the chandelier. There's only one of everything here: one coat hanging on the hooks by the door, one umbrella in the holder. To your sensitive nose the smells of unwashed human and dishware are overwhelming; you can see the kitchen down the hall, with leaning stacks of plates piled in the sink and garbage overflowing from the can.

You surprise yourself in having to take a deep breath before you say the line, but say it you do. There's no going back now. "Dad. I am sorry, but I do not have much time. I am taking a great risk to be here in the first place. I need your help, Dad."

"Help? You need my help?" His voice is shaking, his hands are shaking as he cleans his tear-soaked glasses on the front of his sweater. He almost laughs, makes a horrible noise of inhaling mucus. "Of course, Matt. Anything. Anything you need. What do you want?"

"I need you to get my pokémon back for me."

"Your pokémon?" The glasses are back on his face and he squints through them, trying to make out your face in the dimness. "But why..."

"They are in League holding. I cannot access them. But I need them back, and I know that you can get them released."

"Yes, yes, of course," he says, brushing aside the thing you've been agonizing about for years. He reaches out and puts a hand on your arm, and you barely manage not to flinch away. "That's not what I meant. What is this all about, Matt? Where have you _been_?

"I cannot tell you. The work I am doing is very dangerous, and if I told you, you would become a target." You find yourself warming to your lies now that you've really started in on them. Secret agents are cool, after all.

To your surprise, Leonard Kerrigan flips from morose to angry in the space of a couple of sentences. "Come on, Matt!" he says. "A target of _what_? What's going on? You can tell me! Why are you only coming back now? I mean, after all this time the least you could have done would have been to let us know somehow—I mean, everyone thought you were _dead_, and I-" He slides a hand under his glasses so he can rub at his eyes and the bridge of his nose. "At the very least, your mother-"

He really isn't taking this as well as you'd hoped. Why can't he just be glad you're alive? You cut him off before he can work himself up even further. "I am sorry, Dad. No one was supposed to know I was alive. It would have been safer that way. I cannot tell you what I am doing, or where I have been. And no one else can know about it. You would not have to be involved, either, but you locked me out of my account. I need my pokémon back, Dad."

He pauses with his hand still over one eye, and laughs. "What, getting mad at me for doing my job? If you weren't faking your own death, you wouldn't have to worry about your storage account."

You honestly don't know how to deal with this. A glance around at the miserable little room doesn't lend you any ideas. You decide to be direct. "I am sorry, Dad, but I cannot stay long. If you want to talk, we can do it while you get my pokémon out of storage."

He looks at you with an unreadable expression on his face, then sighs removes his hand from your arm. "Up you go, then," he says, pointing towards the stairs. You remember the way to his study from the last time you were here and are only too happy to lead. You're less happy with what you find when you step inside.

The area around the computer is cleaner than the rest of the house, but only barely. The machine itself is slick, of course, and obviously much loved. But the rest of the room is awash in old newspapers, from respectable publications to the most seedy, the kind that announce Pikablu sightings and report on people who've seen the face of Arceus in their breakfast cereal. These in particular have been going wild with the stories of the dead walking Kanto, but even the Saffron _Times _was only marginally more restrained in its reporting.

Leonard Kerrigan had found those stories, every one of them, and cut them out. There are others, too, reports of curious disappearances, unexplained thefts, that sort of thing, some actually related to you and some not, stretching back over the past two years. They're stacked in haphazard piles, some tacked to the walls alongside computer printouts, and overflow onto the floor in a slurry of words.

The sight is like a hot knife twisting in your gut. Ah, of course. For a few minutes, you'd actually forgotten who it was you were dealing with. Thinking back on your earlier feelings, you're disgusted with yourself. You do your best to keep the tightness out of your voice as you ask, "Dad. What is all this?"

"This?" he asks, stepping into the room behind you and gesturing languidly at all his incriminating papers. "I don't know, Matt. I was wondering whether you might be able to tell me."

"What? Why?"

"Well, you see, Matt, it seems you aren't the _only _trainer out there to fake their death recently." He sits down at the computer, which displays his bobbing porygon-z as a screen saver. "I was just wondering if whatever this _thing _is you've gotten involved with has something to do with them, too."

"I do not know anything about it," you say immediately, then inwardly curse yourself for panicking. "I mean, I do not think so. I have not been keeping up with the news. What is it about?" Leonard isn't typing anything, just sitting at the computer and watching you. You remind yourself to stay cool and alert and that after all you won't solve anything by eliminating Leonard Kerrigan here and now, however easy it would be.

"Just what I said, Matt. Trainers who are supposed to be dead not staying dead. Showing up on the network even after they've been put in the ground." He's looking at you very closely, and you force yourself to focus on his face and not on the computer screen behind him, where War lies close, _so close_.

This isn't working. It's clear you need a change of plan. You take a deep breath and prepare to go off the rails. "I am sorry, Dad. You are right. I am not the only one this happened to. I cannot say more than that, but I promise you that if you help me get my pokémon back, I will return soon. I am almost done, and then I can be with you and Mom again. I did not want to leave. I did not want to be a part of this. But now I am. I need your help, Dad. That is all I am asking for."

Leonard Kerrigan sighs and rubs at his face again. "Of course, Matt. I don't understand, and I wish things could be different, but I'm glad you're alive. If you need your pokémon back, then I'll get them back for you. I just wish, though-" he stops rubbing and looks you in the face, "-there's really no way you can let anyone else know that you're alive? Not even your mother? If you came to see me-"

"Not even you should know," you say curtly. And how awfully true that is. If you hadn't been so careless back then, if he hadn't _seen _you, then perhaps this mortifying situation never would have arisen.

You're having to work hard to stifle your impatience. All this pathetic human blubbering. Why can't the man just get on with it, already? Standing here with the reminders of his scheming all around you is putting you on edge, fraying the ends of your temper.

He's still staring at you, and for a moment you are terribly close to doing something rash out of fear that he sees something wrong in your expression. But then he only shakes his head and says, "I see." And then, mercifully, he turns to the computer and nudges the mouse to dismiss the bouncing porygon. You watch hungrily as he starts typing, torn between wanting to edge closer in order to see what he's doing and afraid that if you move you might somehow shatter this fragile, perfect moment when _everything is going right_.

A small pokéball teleporter set up on the desk spits a crackle of white light, then in one concentrated burst zaps a cluster of pokéballs into existence on the receiving platform. Leonard Kerrigan picks it up and holds it up in front of his face, picking out a pokéball you don't recognize, old and scuffed with a blue top on it. "You remember your first pokémon, don't you, Matt?" he asks, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.

You tense. He wants to play this game, then, does he? You've made a careful study of Matt Kerrigan, and remember him as well as you think you can without ever having met him, but if Leonard begins to ask you serious questions about your past, you're going to be in trouble. This one is no problem, though. You nod and say, "Duke." Duke the persian, family pet for several years before joining Matt Kerrigan on his brief and ill-fated journey.

"That's right," Leonard says with a wan smile. "It's been a long time, hasn't it? Why don't we see if he still remembers you?"

Before you can protest, he tosses the pokéball to the carpet, and Duke takes shape in a flash of light. The small study is abruptly even more cramped as the appearance of a four-foot persian forces you to step back into a leaning stack of old magazines.

Duke blinks and snuffs at the air uncertainly, obviously disoriented. He's been in storage for a long time, and you wonder whether anyone even bothered to explain to him what happened to Matt before putting him away. Your heart is hammering even in the face of a pokémon so unprepared for battle. You hadn't been expecting this, not at all. You were prepared to deal with Leonard, but you aren't sure how to handle any of Matt's pokémon, aside from War—you know very little about them.

Nevertheless, you decide to hope for the best and go out on a limb. "Hello, Duke," you start. The Persian turns deep brown eyes on you, confusion plain on his face. "Remember me? It is good to see you again."

"What? Matt?" Duke rumbles, staring around at the cluttered study in blank incomprehension, catching sight of Leonard sitting by the computer. Well, at least he doesn't seem overtly hostile. You reach out your hand to pet him, but he shrinks away from your fingers, bumping clumsily against the desk as he goes. "What's going on here?" he asks, tense, baring his teeth just slightly.

You hurriedly draw your hand back, make placating gestures, but Leonard is happy to interpret the persian's bewildered behavior according to his own agenda. "I knew it," he says, wearing a sickly smile. "You're not my son. And you _are _connected with the other dead trainers, aren't you? Who are you? And what," the smile is gone, replaced with a grim expression that draws the skin tight over his cheekbones, "have you done with my _son_?"

"No, Dad—Duke-you don't understand. It really _is _me. I know I seem different. Some things... some things have happened. I did not mean for it to be like this. Please, you have to believe me." Duke keeps looking back and forth between you and Leonard, fur starting to bristle in agitation.

"Is that so? Then just what it is that I should believe? Or is that something else that you 'can't tell me'?"

"I can't! I'm not lying. It really is dangerous! Come on, Dad, what is it that you want me to say?"

Leonard Kerrigan shakes his head, and you know his mind is already made up. "No. Just listen to yourself. You sound nothing like him—you sound like some kind of fucking _robot_. Who _are _you?"

You take a breath, clearing your head. You're about to make one more stab at diplomacy—but the evidence of the man's pathetic scheming is all around you, a stark reminder of the injustices you've suffered at his hands. War, trapped in the computer; you, forced into skulking furtiveness for fear of his discovery; your pokédex—you almost choke on bile at the thought. What's the point of discretion? You didn't come here to make friends, after all. You step back, skirting a stack of papers.

All you're trying to do is maneuver for extra space, but Leonard must think you mean to leave the room. He's quick to pounce. "Duke, stop him!"

That's all the excuse you need. There is a ferocious crack as Duke leaps headlong into an invisible barrier, a protect shield thrown up in a heartbeat. As the persian falls to the floor in a daze, you leap over him in one impossibly fast motion, the room blurring for a second before slamming into focus again as you land directly in front of Leonard Kerrigan.

He jerks backward, completely unprepared for how fast you managed close with him, and you grab his arm and wrestle the pokéballs out of his grasp. There's movement behind you as Duke leaps onto the desk, knocking a cascade of papers and old, coffee-encrusted mugs to the floor. You brace yourself as he jumps for you again, then catch him in the chest with your elbow and slam him into the side of the desk.

With your left hand you deliver a smashing brick break attack to keep the struggling persian down, and with the other you try to juggle the pokéballs without dropping any, rolling them around until your fingers can find the blue-topped one.

As Duke gets his legs back under him, badly bruised but now, at last, starting to realize that he really has to _fight, _you thumb the button on the front of the ball and call him back to captivity.

There's a moment of relative peace, and a last couple of paper shreds drift to the floor in front of the now-crooked desk. You stuff the pokéballs into your pocket and make for the door in earnest, but are jerked to a halt as Leonard grabs your arm from behind.

You turn to look back at him, surprised but not at all disappointed, because now the fool really _is _going to put himself in your way. If he's going to push you—well, who's to blame you if you push back? You look down into his desperate face, his teeth clenched, eyes tearing at the corners, as he tries to—what? Drag you back? Pull you down? What can he expect to do, after he saw you take care of the persian so easily? "Stop!" he's yelling. "Who are you? _What have you done with my son?_"

You smile, easily standing strong against his clumsy attempts to wrestle you down. You could kill him now, if you wanted. You have what you came for, and you would be eliminating a dangerous enemy. But it might not be wise. His death would bring an investigation, and for lack of any other motive, someone might begin to suspect that there was more to his ramblings about dead trainers and his living son than previously suspected. As it is, they think he's crazy, and if he tries to discuss your visitation with anyone, they'll only grow more sure. Best just to leave him something impossible to remember you by.

Your grin stretches wider and wider, splitting Matt Kerrigan's face ear to ear as jaws reconfigure to accommodate the rows of new teeth forcing their way out of your gums, gleaming sharp in the dim light. Fingers grow claws and irises bleed to red as you stare into Leonard Kerrigan's eyes.

Those eyes are widening, and the grip on your arm slackens as anger gives way to horror on his face. "What—just what the hell-" he starts.

"Your son is dead, you stupid old fool," you say in a voice that comes out mushy from a mouth no longer meant for human speech. Leonard Kerrigan is still trying to say something, or at least he's moving his mouth, but there's nothing there for you to hear. You lean in closer and add, "And if you continue to get in my way, you will be next."

The look of pathetic hopelessness on Leonard Kerrigan's face is exquisite, and you laugh as you press your free hand into his chest and shove him away from you, easily breaking his slack grip. You half-hope he'll come at you again, make some desperate final effort to deter you. But he just lies where he's fallen, cowering, staring at you in confusion and fear. You laugh again at his pathetic expression, flush with your victory, and leave the room unharried. Out in the hall, well out of sight, you pause for a moment and clamp down on your elation enough to concentrate and think yourself elsewhere.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Some weeks later, the child starts awake from dreams not its own. It sits in the dark for a few moments, confused, wondering what brought it round. Then it sees Absol sitting quietly by the far wall, watching, and its disorientation fades as adrenaline floods its veins. It swings itself out of bed and into the right body, then wrestles out of its pajamas and gives itself a look over, checking that it's got everything right, recalling who it is.

You are Weavile, claws out and glinting in the cutting moonlight. The darkness suffusing your body will drive off some of the cold of your journey, a journey to Absol-only-knows-where. She watches you, patient through the time it takes you to gather your wits, then gets to her feet. There is no need for words or explanation. There is only one reason she would be calling on you now. _Disaster is coming._

Not your disaster, thankfully. There is one soul left to perish, the one that holds your last pokémon; it is _their_ disaster that Absol feels, and you must be there when it arrives so you can take back your last friend. You dart over to Absol, the last dregs of sleep dissolving before your excitement. You'd never expected this would come so soon, though each death has come quicker than the last. You clutch at Absol's flank as she walks forward into shadow and through the solid wall, guiding you onto the dark ways you will walk to reach the destination Absol feels through her obscure connection to Fate.

When she finally pulls you out of the darkness, you are struck by the urge to turn around and hurl yourself right back in. The stench of the place overwhelms you, the cold burn of disinfectant unable to hide the undertones of sweat and vomit and urine and blood from your sensitive nose. The whirr and beep of machinery fills your ears, and farther away, footsteps, conversations; closer, slow, heavy breathing, the rustling of sheets from the small motions of sleep. You feel the dark fur bristling along your arms as you fight the instinct to flee. Absol is as unaffected as ever, padding past the bed and towards the door.

A hospital. A _hospital_. What are you supposed to do here? There's no way you can stay out of sight: there are people everywhere, moving about on inscrutable agendas. You didn't bring any human clothes, and even if you had some to wear, they probably wouldn't want you wandering around anyway. Now that the initial shock has worn off, you're able to concentrate, dull your senses until the awful smell is barely noticeable. But that doesn't do much to ease your panic.

You keep low as you scamper across to where Absol waits at the door. A beam of light shines in beneath it, and as you watch, a shadow flashes across as someone walks by outside. In here, things are quiet. Out there, the hospital is sleepless. Out there, you will be seen.

Absol makes as if to leave, reaching a paw up for the handle, but you hiss to her, "Wait! Don't go out there!" She pauses and gives you a blank look.

"People are going to see us, Absol, and they'll throw us out. They don't just let pokémon wander around in here. And what if they figure out I'm not one? I can't go out there. You can't, either." You keep your voice low, ears straining for any sign that the human in the room has been roused by your faint conversation.

Absol stays where she is, up on her haunches with one paw stretching towards the handle overhead. Her look suggests that this is not the time to be worried about such trivialities, but you press on.

"Look, why don't we go outside and try to come up with a plan there? It'll probably be easier to get ahold of the trainer's things after they die, when they're sent somewhere else."

Absol slowly lowers her paw back to the linoleum and impales you on her hardest stare. "If we do not find the trainer now, how will we later? I do not know their name or anything about them; I can feel only where they are, and that their end is coming. I will know them when I see them. I know nothing else. If I wait until they are dead, I will know nothing of them at all. It must be now."

"The humans aren't going to let you see the trainer anyway. If we stop and think, maybe we'll be able to come up with a better way to do this."

Absol snorts lightly. "You worry too much. Watch me, and learn. But if you are truly scared of being seen-then do not be seen."

"How? There's nowhere to hide out there, and there are people everywhere."

All you get in response is a disdainful look, and then Absol's paw lashes out again, faster than the protest being born on your lips, and pulls down the handle. She jerks backwards, popping the door open a crack, then jams her claws into the space between door and jamb before it can shut. She levers it wider and shoulders her way through. You feel the tiniest pang of guilt; you would have had a much easier time getting the door open. But you didn't _want_ it open, and you certainly _don't_ want Absol sashaying out into the hallway the way she is now.

The door is swinging shut again, and you dart out to prop it open with a claw before it can close all the way. You press your eye to the crack and watch.

Absol's presence goes unnoticed for all of around three seconds, at which point a doctor hurrying around a corner nearly trips over her. "Hey, what are you doing in here?" she says, moving to block Absol's way. Absol, ever-stately, alters course just enough to not be intercepted. The doctor is insistent on blocking her path, hustling left and right to stay in front of her, and finally Absol looks up at the woman with her most bored expression, then sits down to wait for her to go away.

The doctor seems unsure how to respond to this. She tries flapping her hands at Absol. "Shoo." The look Absol gives her is enough to make her lower her arms and glance around for help. It isn't far away; you can hear someone else approaching.

"Trouble, Joan?"

"What's this Absol doing here? Does it belong to someone? It shouldn't be wandering around like this."

"I've never seen it before." The doctor's hands twitch, as though he's about to make a shooing motion. Absol turns her gaze on him. He subsides.

You wonder how long she'll be content to sit there and let the humans do their little dance. There isn't much time-minutes, at most-before the unknown trainer dies. If it happens before you can identify them-well, it won't be impossible to track them down, whatever Absol thinks. There will be records: who died here at around the right time. But you have to admit that it would be much more complicated. Absol _hates_ complications.

For your part, you need to get closer so you don't get left behind. As far as you can see, you have only one real option. You can't just be Kecleon (never works; people _always_ notice the stripe) or cast an illusion (useful until you accidentally brush against someone in the hallway and lose it) or simply walk out into the hall yourself, though apparently that's what Absol expects you to do.

You're not going to. You're going to walk the shadow ways yourself, much though you hate doing it.

Outside, a third human has arrived. "...time to time," she's saying. "Usually show up for someone they're connected to-owner, or owner's relative or friend. Who knows, sometimes. Never heard of one making any trouble, and they can be dead useful-watch where they're going and get a crash cart ready, if you know what I mean. Not to mention it'd be a pain in the ass to plug up all the ways they can get in. Might as well let it get where it's going, I think." Absol looks on with her usual icy calm, waiting for them to go off and spout their nonsense elsewhere. You hiss in irritation, softly. If they're letting her go, you can't put things off any longer.

You pull your claw from the crack, then look around the shadowy room as the door swings shut. The scene is perfectly clear before your night vision, for what little good it does you. You could steal the face of this patient, steal their gown, you suppose. But surely they're not supposed to be up and walking around the hospital, either, even if they didn't wake to your ministrations and make a scene. You rub at the base of your crest and turn to stare into the shadows you only just stepped from. It's only a little jump. You'll be fine. You'll be _perfectly_ fine.

Even so, it's not until you force yourself to remember your promise that you can get yourself moving again. There's no way you could stand before _her_ and say that you failed in your mission because you were afraid of the dark. So you steel yourself and gather the shadows around you until the dark ways unroll before your eyes.

It's a frantic scramble to reach the hallway. You dart past a wall that is sometimes there and sometimes not as the world fluxes around you, keeping to the deepest shadows, where the familiar world lies close by. Absol isn't bothered by this place, but you have nothing close to her understanding of it. You cannot tell when the shades of possibility will come or go, and a misstep could impale you on some suddenly-jutting piece of architecture, or sink you two inches down into the floor, and for all their transience shades can leave wounds that will follow you back into the light.

Out in the hallway, more shades are passing. You dance around them warily, doing everything you can not to be touched. If you look closely, you think you can tell which ones are the doctors standing outside right now.

Once you asked Absol whether it's possible to meet yourself, walking the dark ways. After all, the reflections of other people come and go, present, past, and future. She thought that was a stupid question, you could tell, but tried to be kind in answering it. No, you can't, she'd said. Because of course, when you walk the dark ways, you are all your pasts and presents and futures come together, so they can be nowhere else. You still don't understand what she meant, but it's some comfort. You don't know if you would ever be able to face the shadows again if you encountered another of yourselves here, an empty negative ever-wandering.

As you move, you focus on Absol, using her familiar shade to anchor you. As you watch, she gets up and starts to move; the haze of the human shades that had barred her way finally part. She strolls along at her usual unhurried pace, though surely disaster is drawing nigh. Shades flicker in and out of being all around her, moving on their own obscure errands, and you are not experienced enough to recognize which are in the now, actually out in the hospital with Absol, and which are once-beens or yet-to-comes, but none try to stop her.

You realize, as you watch, that Absol's being followed by some human shade-one of the doctors from earlier, you suppose. Clearing the way for her, then? Strange, you think, but convenient. You follow after her, too, skipping and waltzing around the other shades that fill the hall, your path circuitous and fraught while the other two plunge heedless through the brush of memories and visions they can't see. The deep chill of the shadows has worked its way into your bones now, overcoming the darkness running through your body, and you are beginning to tire. This is the farthest you've ever walked the dark ways alone.

You hasten to catch up with Absol, looking all the while for a patch of shadow big enough for you to step through. There aren't any in the corridor, which is brightly lit even at this hour. You consider the rooms to either side, most of them dark, with their blinds drawn for the night, but you need to be able to see where Absol goes. For now, it seems, that means running along in her wake, navigating the shifting shadow-world as best you can.

Absol turns and walks through what must be a doorway, sits, and waits. The air around her absolutely teems with shades, and you hesitate, unwilling to plunge into the fray. Instead you cast about for another place to reemerge, somewhere close enough to hear and see what's going on but safely out of sight. You struggle to make sense of the morphing geometry of the dark world, not able to stand still for a moment, always moving to avoid annihilation by one of its shifting shades, and make a decision. You see an out and lunge for it, in your hurry coming a hairs-breadth too close to an ephemerally-closing door. A stab of chill sets your heart stuttering as the shade passes through the edge of your arm.

No sooner are you through than you toss off your mantle of darkness, cradling the injured arm gingerly and hissing at the pain. The sliver of light creeping in under the door is enough for you to see the blood glistening in your fur, but once you get ahold of yourself, you're able to see it for what it really is-just a scrape. You chide yourself both for your mistake and for your overreaction to it, then go for the doorhandle.

Your dark little hidey-hole is a supply closet just down the hall from the room Absol chose. You ease the door open the slightest crack, just enough that you can see and hear a little of what's going on in the examination room.

It's crowded with humans and pokémon alike, all milling about, with the doctor who'd been following Absol at the center of it all. You sharpen your ears and listen, straining to follow a single voice through the clamor and the white noise of closer, subtler sounds amplified by your change in perception.

The doctor is saying something, urging the group out, out of the room, they need it clear. Human voices rise in response, young, female, tense and anxious; pokémon exclaim to one another in confusion and worry. No one actually goes anywhere, not until your ears bring you the sound of something new. Below the confused clamor of people-noise, there grows the steady, insistent complaint of computers. Alarms sound and displays flash, and the protests and sounds of distress redouble.

The doctor goes from stern to shouting, leaning out into the hall to summon aid from people passing by. At last the room's occupants pile out, while medical staff rush in, and for a few seconds there is great confusion as people swirl and eddy outside the exam room. Then the door is shut, firmly, doctors and nurses within going through their dance of injections and intubations and resuscitations in a futile attempt to stave off the workings of Fate.

Your breath catches in your throat as you see Thunderstorm mixed in with the jumble of those waiting. It's been years, of course, but you'd recognize Thunder anywhere, with its one crooked magnet and the dent in its bottom side, a souvenir from a battle with an overly exuberant machop. It's evolved now, you note with affectionate pride, the original Thunderstorm being the leftmost magnet. Whatever your feelings towards the trainers who stole your friends, they at least seem to have been treated well.

The magneton is staying aloof from the crisis, seeming more resigned than anything while the gaggle of pokémon and two humans, girls in their late teens, probably, or perhaps just twenty, jabber at one another and at people passing in the hall, working themselves into a froth of apprehension. A couple of nurses have taken it upon themselves to try and calm the bunch down, keep them quiet and out of the way, remind them of the patients all around who are trying to sleep. The exam room's door stays closed, an unknown battle raging beyond.

Ordinarily you would have passed the time pretending to be in one of your favorite medical dramas. Now, though, you can't take your eyes off Thunderstorm, longing to rush over and greet it, whatever the consequences. You suppose it probably wouldn't be very happy to see you, considering the circumstances-your other companions were all rather distressed by the deaths of their itinerant trainers, regardless of how happy they were to see you again, and you doubt Thunderstorm will be any different.

The eddy of activity inside the room slows a bit, and you sense that your wait will soon be over. One of the doctors comes out to speak with the waiting humans, and your sharpened ears easily carry her words back to you. "I'm sorry..."

The rest is drowned out by the ripple of anguish that runs through the group. The cries of various pokémon and the small gasps of the human girls fill the corridor, and the pace of your heartbeat surges, loud in your ears. It's over, then. Thunderstorm is yours to take now, and once you have it, finally, your work can truly begin.

The doctors and nurses summoned by the shrilling of the equipment are filing out, exhausted and slump-shouldered, doing their best not to notice the anguished group in the corridor. Their colleague, with the unlucky job of watching over the survivors, motions for them to come back inside, where the body is waiting. You watch the group shamble into the room, some moving quickly, seeming almost eager in their disbelief, some belabored and already resigned to the truth. Thunderstorm drifts along near the rear, and you watch its progress hungrily.

Absol is still inside the room; she's probably settled herself near the door, out of the way and no doubt soon forgotten. One way or another, you can't see her from this angle. You drum your claws against the doorjamb and consider making a brief jump over to the room, popping up in the shadow below the bed, perhaps, or under a cabinet. Probably too risky, though. The pokémon would be able to smell you, even if you stayed concealed. They're distracted at the moment, though...

Not worth the risk. You subside, annoyed but schooling yourself to patience. You've already waited so long, after all. You can handle a few more minutes. Better that than screw everything up over some stupid risk. You lean your head against the doorjamb, as though the cool wood might soothe the thoughts raging around your skull. What you need is a plan, and for that, you need to calm down. You aren't having much luck with that, though, especially not now that the typhlosion's crying is starting to intrude on your thoughts.

To the humans in the room it probably sounds like nothing more than animal wailing, and there is some of that. But you can also hear words.

"How could she leave us?" the typhlosion is bawling, paws over his face and his snout buried in the sheet next to the cooling body of his trainer. "What's going to happen to _us_? Who's going to take care of us?"

Thunderstorm hovers quietly behind him, at a respectful distance. Its glassy eyes are impassive, and no emotion colors the flat pop-popping of its sparking words. "It won't be so bad. I've done it before. When this happened to my first trainer, well... they send you to the PC for a bit, and if they don't have a place for you, they release you. I wanted to be trained, and it didn't take me long to find another human-Meghan."

The typhlosion makes a mewling noise and slams his fists on the bedspread. "But I've never been wild! I don't want to be wild! I don't want them to release me!"

"You're a starter. They understand that. I'm sure they'll be able to find something for you-maybe not something that involves a lot of battling, but they won't just throw you into the wild. I don't think." There is an interval of low humming, the magneton equivalent of a "hmmm," and then, "There was a starter on my old team, a charmander. I don't know what they did with him, not for sure. But he wasn't with those of us they released. So I think you'll be fine."

The typhlosion puts his paws over his face and whines, rubbing his snout in the sheets like he wants to burrow under them and hide. Thunderstorm turns slowly away, drifting closer to the front of the room. It doesn't look at its trainer's corpse, nor at the other people in the room, the buizel crying quietly in a corner, the plusle and minun hugging each other just the same as the humans across the bed are, looking confused and frightened.

You mark the faint droop in Thunder's magnets and its intermittent, confused sparking, and a twisted jealousy rises in you. There it is, grieving for the trainer who _stole_ it from you, took it from its purpose, and still it mourns her like she _deserves_ it. You dig your claws into doorframe and saw them back and forth to dispel a bit of your anger. It's irrational, you tell yourself. As far as Thunderstorm knows-you even heard it say as much-you're as dead as the imposter is now. But _still_.

The humans-trainers, presumably; at least Meghan was one-are doing their best to answer the doctor's gentle questions. You idly wonder what exactly their friend, or sister, or perhaps just some stranger, died of. Something to ask Thunderstorm later. Now that the typhlosion's subsided to more quiet grief, you can pick up their conversation easily enough.

"Yes, her parents-I called her parents when we got here. They were getting a flight... I-I think they should be in the air now. Probably just a couple more hours." The girl swallows audibly and swipes at red-rimmed eyes. "I'm sorry, I don't really know how... how to handle..." Her friend, beside her, nods.

"That's fine," the doctor says, giving them a worn smile. "We'll take care of it. It'll be up to her parents to make the final arrangements. Will you be staying to meet them here?" The two nod wordlessly, leaning against each other in exhaustion. "I'll leave you alone, then. But I think you should consider going down to the café, have some coffee, tea, maybe something to eat. You've had a long night."

"I don't know if I could-" the first girl starts, but her friend puts a hand on her arm and she pauses, taking a great, shuddering breath. "Okay. Okay, yeah... maybe that would help."

The doctor nods and says, "It's up to you. But remember, if you leave the room, please recall your pokémon. They can't be out in the rest of the hospital, and we'd appreciate if you didn't leave them unsupervised."

"Oh, right. Sure." The first trainer rummages pokéballs out of a pocket and recalls several of the room's occupants, Thunderstorm among them, in flashes of red light. You hiss a curse to yourself and start drumming your claws again, then stop immediately when a nurse passing in the hallway pauses, her gaze roaming as if she's trying to find the source of a mysterious noise. You force yourself to stand quietly while you fume about the situation Fate's thrown you into. How are you going to get that pokéball out of the girl's pocket, especially here, where you can hardly move for fear of being seen?

The second trainer, the taller one, hasn't moved. The remaining pokémon peek at her around the edge of the bed, obviously nervous. As the doctor turns to leave, she speaks up. "If pokémon aren't allowed out in the hospital, what about that absol that came in with you? Does it work here?"

The doctor grimaces and turns towards what is presumably Absol, and you can picture the woman receiving a cutting stare in return for her pointed look. "No, it doesn't. They show up around here sometimes, and we haven't had much luck keeping them out. I suggest you just ignore this one, unless it starts to cause trouble; then you should call someone to try and remove it."

"It's that omen thing, isn't it?" the girl presses. "They're supposed to show up when their trainer's in danger, aren't they?" The vehemence in her voice unnerves the doctor, who takes a step back, raising her hands in a placating gesture. Across the room, the remaining pokémon take notice, and all eyes turn towards Absol.

"I'm sure I couldn't-" the doctor begins, but the trainer isn't listening.

"If they show up when someone's in danger, why didn't this one come earlier, when-when-?" the trainer goes on. She's starting to tear up again, but her face is set in an angry grimace, her voice rising. Her pokémon tense, and so do you.

The other girl glances at her friend, then hisses at Absol, "Go away. You got to see what you wanted, didn't you? So now _go_. You aren't welcome here." You can imagine Absol's bored stare.

"I-I'm not just going to _ignore_ it! It was there when Meghan died. It was just _watching_? Some warning! Some help!" With sudden decisiveness, she points at Absol and barks, "Minun! Get rid of that thing!"

"Ma'am!" the doctor yelps. "This is a _hospital_! Recall your pokémon!"

The minun himself looks bewildered, still shell-shocked with grief, tiny and nervous in the strange new world of the hospital. At his trainer's goading, he toddles up next to her feet and starts to spark from cheeks and paws alike, but he is still reluctant to attack.

"I'll call _security_, Ma'am," the doctor says warningly. "I'll call-" And then she leans out into the hall and yells for assistance, for the trainer is paying her no attention at all.

"Go _on_, Minun. Spark!" she yells, shrugging off the restraining hand of her friend. Minun pulls himself together and makes a dash for Absol while you agonize in indecision. A battle, a scene, sure to draw attention to you and your mission-the last thing you need. But on the other hand, who's going to notice you in the midst of the chaos? Who's going to be able to say with certainty, afterwards, exactly what happened?

It may not be the best chance, but it is _a_ chance. You decide to take it.

Meanwhile, the minun is racing for Absol, who remains out of sight until the electric type is perilously close. Then she lunges from her spot and into your field of view, lashing out swift and precise with a paw. The minun is swatted aside and into the wall, striking it with a pathetic little smack and falling in a crumpled heap.

Absol flinches ever so slightly from the shock of contact with the sparking pokémon, but is hardly hurt. You gather your strength, then hurl yourself across the corridor in an impossible burst of speed, coming to rest at the foot of the bed in the examination in half a heartbeat.

While Minun gets unsteadily to his feet and calls up his lightning again, the humans stare at you in brief shock. "Another one?" one trainer asks.

And, her anger temporarily forgotten, the second replies, "A-weavile?"

"That's the biggest weavile _I've_ ever seen..."

You ignore them, bringing your claws together in front of your face and concentrating. For all your practice, this attack never comes easy to you. You draw deep on the shadows, and darkness wells up and through you, hollowing out your chest, scouring your insides with the chill of the unreal. It overflows and pours out from the shell of your body, the fluorescent lights overhead dimming as a wave of dark energy sweeps out in all directions, a tide of nightmare power that engulfs everyone in the room, catching their minds in its inky undertow. The minun's electricity goes out with a tiny _zzzt!_, and he staggers and sinks to the floor while the humans collapse boneless and unconscious behind him, pulled down into noxious, unnatural sleep. Absol lets fall the energy barrier that shielded her from the attack and looks around with mild interest, then back at you, waiting for an explanation.

Before you can give one, an angry cry from behind you announces that you didn't manage to fell all the onlookers, and Absol dashes around you to head off a snarling nidorino. Meanwhile, a glance to the side finds that the noises of combat have started to attract onlookers; a couple nurses stand at the door, eyes wide, mute with surprise. You send them scampering with bared teeth and a quick lunge, then turn back to the task at hand.

You have to work quickly. You don't know how well your attack will work on human physiology, so you have no idea how long the humans scattered around you will stay out, how long you have before security shows up or someone else interferes. One of the girls is already awake, maybe from the shock of her skull cracking against the tiles. But it's a vague, insensible consciousness, and she offers no resistance as you scamper over her to reach her friend.

You plunge a claw into the trainer's pocket, digging out pokéballs. You struggle to keep hold of them as you dart over to a pair of chairs up against the wall and the three large hiking packs propped next to them. You bring a fist down on one of the bags to create a depression, then drop the pokéballs into it with your other hand. A couple nestle in place, but several slither away, rebounding from the tiled floor and scattering in all directions.

You curse to yourself and give chase, shouting for Absol to come and find you. She pins the nidorino under a paw and gives her usual curt nod of acknowledgement, flicking a misty spatter of blood from the edge of her blade in the process. You hardly notice, skidding around on the tile and snatching at bouncing pokéballs with clumsy claws. When at last you've gathered them all again, you race back to the bags and press yourself up against them, stretching out to be sure you're touching all three at once. Then you jump, thinking yourself back to the only safe place you can reach from here-the storage closet.

There in the dark you slice the bags open, not stopping to bother with the zippers, spilling their contents onto the floor. You sort through it with anxious haste-clothes, food, first aid kit; no pokédex. Fear seizes you as you stir the tangle of junk, digging in slapdash haste to find the only thing that concerns you. Maybe it's gone, turned over to an authority or placed in some official holding.

On through candy bars, a dog-eared magazine, more clothing-crumpled clothing, tangled around itself instead of carefully rolled up like the rest, and here, a pokénav, keys-the pokédex. It skitters out onto the tiles and you snatch it up, fumbling it open with your outsize claws and then groping for the pokéballs, which have by now spilled in all directions. Absol steps out of the gloom to find you grabbing them up one at a time and pressing them to the pokédex's reader, watching the screen to discover what is inside each.

At last you find the one you're looking for and drop the rest, letting them bounce and roll away into whatever crevices they please. You struggle with the hatch on the back of the pokédex, only now bothering to let your claws melt away and reform into dextrous human digits. You pull the data card from its little slot and drop the dead pokédex onto the pile of detritus, then glance up at Absol and grin. She gives a small nod, then half-turns away, inviting. You vault over the ruin of the trainers' possessions and land by her side, putting a hand on her shoulder. Absol starts forward, the dark ways unrolling before her, and guides you both home.

* * *

Back at the house, the child spends a long time simply clutching the pokéball in its hands, elated but too exhausted to face the pokémon inside. But the thrill of victory will not let it rest, and it lies awake on its bed until long after morning comes, thinking, exulting, remembering. Remembering Cinnabar.

It had watched footage of the eruption on television, marveling at the disaster it had so narrowly avoided. At the time it didn't thought of anything but how lucky it had been to survive, to have Absol. But then, two days later, she came for it. "Come. There is something you must see." And the place she took it was like the ruins of hell.

Cinnabar Island was wiped out, nothing left standing. Some buildings had been engulfed by lava flows, the others flattened by the force of the blast itself or crushed beneath the boulders it had hurled. The wreckage was covered meters-deep in choking ash. Absol was practically swimming through it, and the child struggled to follow, floundering through with its shirt pulled over its face in a vain effort to block out the particulates, coughing miserably all the while. But it knew better than to complain. Absol, her usually immaculate coat soiled and dark, would not have brought it here for no reason.

She reached an anonymouse pile of wreckage climbed the jut of a splintered beam poking from the ash slurry, claws digging deep into the crumbling wood to hold herself steady. The child stopped below and waited, looking for some indication of why Absol had brought it there. But the slumping gray humps of ash obscured everything, and even if they'd been standing at the center of the town hall, the child would never have been able to tell.

"Listen," Absol said. "Look around you. This is Fate."

"Fate" wasn't right. When Absol spoke of it, the child got the impression that what she meant was something far larger and more complicated than such a human word, but "Fate" was the best translation it could make. It had tried grilling Absol about it many times over the years, but all that had ever happened was the two of them frustrating each other. Absol would be annoyed by the child's stupidity-how could it fail to understand something so natural and obvoius? And the child had been completely bewildered by Absol's analogies-what was it supposed to do with explanations like "It is like the way shadows bend when they flow over blood?"

So, Fate it was. Absol continued. "Two years ago, a terrible crime happened here. It was a crime both against Mew and against nature itself. It must not be allowed to happen again. Look around you. Those who were responsible have been punished." She tipped her head to the side, ever so slightly. "And those who were not responsible have also been punished. Such is the way of Fate."

The child looked again at the shattered remains of Cinnabar Island, then to the still-smoking volcano rising overhead, one side of its cone disintegrated by the explosion. Half-imagined pictures of white-furred shadows, padding quietly through history, teased at its brain. Sometimes it wasn't sure whether Absol thought Fate was something that _was_ or something you _did_.

"There are many who abetted the creation of Mewtwo, and every last one of them will be punished. They will die. They will die unnaturally. They will die before the time set down for them."

Ah. A question. The child, most certainly, had so abetted. And it had to ask-did that mean that it, too...?

Absol gave it a long, steady look, and after a moment it subsided, sheepish. Oh. Of course. It had already died.

Absol continued. "You recall that I have a mission."

It did. _Defend the child._

"You recall that you have a mission as well. One that you did not undertake alone."

It did. Its heartbeat quickened as it began to suspect.

"After you died, humans took your pokémon and divided them. They have come to rest in the hands of others who were here on Cinnabar, others who have been marked by Fate. Each of these will perish, and perish unnaturally, before their time. When they do, I will know. When they do, you will be reunited with your friends. You will take what they had and use it to carry out your mission, so that their possessions may be used to rectify the wrong they helped bring about. Such is the will of Fate." She fixed the child with a hard stare. "You have grown into your strength. It is time for you to begin your mission in earnest. Are you prepared?"

Yes, of course. It said as much, wheezed it, gagging on the suffocating mouthful of ash-filled air it sucked down in its excitement. Absol was solemn in the face of its hacking affirmation. She nodded. "Then come." She leaped from the beam and dropped into the wreckage, the remains of some anonymous building now blasted from its foundation. She dug industriously, hollowing out a crevice in the shifting ash and batting free a grime-covered pokéball, sending it rolling towards the child's feet. As it bent down to pick it up, she said, "This is the first. See to it that you do not forget its purpose, or your own."

Only later would the child wonder how Absol managed to find the thing, buried in a pile of soot in some no-account corner of Cinnabar Island. At the time it had been too overwhelmed by the reunion with its friend, with the treasure salvaged from the wreckage, with the fact that it suddenly had a real home, once the summer vacation house of some wealthy Cinnabar resident, now left empty and forgotten on a little island to the south.

The child held that first pokéball-Rats' pokéball-didn't understand what it meant, what it was embarking on. Now it holds this last pokéball, and the circle is complete. It has planned and waited and grown impatient and waited still more, and finally it is ready to set out on its journey. It's a journey long-deferred, dreamt of by a dead human child but never taken. It is a journey dreamt of once again by the person it has become, and today it will begin.

There are eight badges. There is a grand tournament, held once per year. It is only a little over a month away.

The child will win those badges. It will enter the tournament. And it will meet the trainer who holds the key to its future-its future, and that of its mother.

But first, someone else will have to die.


End file.
